THE RELIEF OF THE ALCAZAR AT TOLEDO
The troops of the African expeditionary force, when I
reached the Tagus valley from San Sebastian, had made
much progress since I had last seen them at Merida and
Badajoz on August 14. The operations from Merida
had been rapid and daring. They were described from
day to day in the Daily Mail at the time by Mr. Paul
Bewsher, who, when he could be persuaded to speak, had
a fund of hair-raising stories of his experiences In the
battle line In the company of an Italian friend, Signor
Benedetti, another well-known journalist "We used/'
he told me, "simply to drive to the front, and when we saw
a battery firing or a machine-gun In position, we would
walk to the nearest officer and question him. 'What is
that village?' 'Oh, Santa Ollala.' 'Good Where are
your first troops? What, down there in that glen? Well,
you won't take Santa Ollala till this afternoon?' And we
would then drive back to the nearest town, Talavera de
la Reina, say, for a hurried lunch, a hurried message put on
the cable, and then back by the same road to enter Santa
Ollala at the same time as the first troops of the Legion
or the first Moors, shouting their war cries."
But often things did not go quite so easily as all that,
and Paul Bewsher was less ready to speak of occasions when
he had to ditch his car to avoid shelling, and wait two
hours lying fiat in a shell-hole until the Red bombardment
had finished and he could continue his progress to the
rear with his dispatch for his newspaper.
Two days before I reached Talavera de la Reina, Mr.
Bewsher had been present at the capture of Maqueda,
a key position, on the line of march to Toledo, and he
had been able by his presence in the front line to obtain
an exclusive story of the fighting which was not available
to anybody else for more than twenty-four hours. The
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